Hometown Views

Title

Date Released

City to Develop Ordinance for Review Board

6/27/2012

The City of Fayetteville is working to develop an ordinance that creates a Citizen Complaint Review Board. Based on best practices established by other NC municipalities, the Council will work closely with City staff, especially Police Department leadership, to define the composition and scope of the proposed board. Once established, the ordinance will then be taken to the legislature with the City’s request for enabling legislation.

The overall purpose of the Citizen Complaint Review Board (a key recommendation of the NOBLE report) is to, on appeal, review police department investigations conducted in response to complaints. The effort is to ensure accountability and to show that investigations into allegations of misconduct by officers are completed in a logical, impartial, thorough, and thoughtful manner.

“The City Council strongly supports the creation of a Citizen Complaint Review Board and has asked the State legislative delegation to help with the effort,” Mayor Tony Chavonne said. “We want to take our time to get the details of our review board developed and then plan to present to our state legislative delegation in the long session in 2013.”

The Fayetteville Police Department fully supports the process of developing a Citizen Complaint Review Board and is currently working on the structure that they will recommend to the Council for review and consideration.